Night Of Shame, Night Of Joy
by Gunnery Sergeant
Summary: In 1997, Gibbs committed the most shameful action he ever made. Or so he thinks. Now, twelve years later, two conversations will make him realize he might have a reason to feel different...
1. Shame

_A/N: I've decided to go on posting what I consider my most unusual work so far...It's a gen story and even if there is a bit of het, this isn't a pairing-centric fic...well, really, trilogy, because there are two more stories in this AU. You will understand more after you read it..._

**Night of Shame, Night of Joy**

**By Gunnery Sergeant**

_Set early in Season Six_

Thanks to **Finlaure** for the betareading!

**1-Shame**

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was sitting at the counter of a bar near the Navy Yard, mind lost in thought, when a hand posed lightly on his back, snapping him out of his reverie.

Turning his head over his shoulder, he saw it was Ducky and smiled weakly.

"Hey, Duck," he greeted his friend.

"Hello, Jethro. Do you mind if I sit with you?"

"Of course not. Can I buy you something? Scotch? Brandy? Whiskey?" Gibbs asked, waving his hand to attract the bartender's attention.

"Whatever you're drinking will be fine," Ducky answered, climbing on the stool by his side.

Gibbs smirked. "I doubt you'd like drinking Coke."

"Coke?" the older man's eyebrows arched in surprise. "You're drinking Coke?"

"Yep," Gibbs replied and then ordered a Macallan for Ducky. When it arrived, his friend took a sip of the amber liquid, and then turned to face him with an intent look.

"I've never seen you drink Coke before, Jethro. I guess there is always a first time for everything, but I confess I was expecting you to have something stronger…especially this evening."

Gibbs nodded slowly, not surprised Ducky remembered the meaning this day had for him.

"I never drink alcohol on this anniversary," he said after a while. "Or better, I've stopped doing it long ago, after something…happened."

Ducky tilted his head and posed his hand again on his shoulder, squeezing gently. "Something very bad, I feel. Do you want to tell me about it, Jethro? It might do you well to talk about it."

Gibbs studied the older man, wondering if he could risk telling him, and decided that yes, he could. He had already told Ducky how he had chased and shot Shannon and Kelly's killer, an action that had made him a murdered, and his friend had not judged him. So what danger there was with revealing he was a rapist too?

He took a sip of his Coke then began speaking, lowly and slowly.

"As you may remember, back in 1997 I served as agent afloat on a carrier in the Med for six months. On the sixth anniversary of Shannon and Kelly's death, the ship docked in Beirut for repairs and I took the chance to go ashore and find a bar where to get drunk as I had done the previous five years."

Ducky nodded and encouraged him to go on with a wave of his hand.

"I went in the Christian area of the town and found a bar that sold liquors. I began my drinking routine, but long before I could begin to get drunk, I started to feel…well, strange."

His friend's eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "Strange? How?"

Gibbs took a deep breath. "Hot. Sweaty. Restless. And…"

"And?"

"Aroused, Duck. I've never been so hard in my whole life. It was incredibly painful..."

"Good Lord!" the ME exclaimed, leaning back on the stool. "Sounds like you were given an aphrodisiac and a strong one too."

"Yep. That was my blood tests said the next day, but back then I couldn't think straight enough to understand what was happening to me. The pain didn't allow me to focus on anything but finding a woman…" Gibbs swallowed hard, as he remembered his torment and need, the blood pounding in his ears, his shaking hand gripping the glass so hard he was afraid of breaking it. "I tried to resist, Duck. God knows I did, but when the bartender asked me if I wanted a girl… I couldn't say no."

His friend just nodded, his expression grim, but there was no judgment in his eyes, "I understand, Jethro."

"I was led into a room in the back of the bar. There was a bed, with a gagged girl tied to the headboard. I don't remember much of her… just that she was a typical Middle Eastern girl and that she was very young. She had eyes that were full of fear and anguish, looking at me from a bruised, swollen face. She had been beaten, and a part of me was still aware enough to know she wasn't there on her free will… but I didn't care. I just wanted her… needed her." Gibbs swallowed hard and looked away for a moment, before returning to face his friend, "The last thing I remember of that night is throwing my jacket away and lowering myself on top of her."

He hung his head, as shame returned to assault him, as it always did on this night and every time he had to deal with raped women. He waited for Ducky to say something, but when he finally did, there was no censure or disgust in his voice.

"What happened next?"

"The following morning I woke up with a terrible headache, and as tired as I had run a marathon. I was no longer in the back of the bar, but in a hotel room, not very far from that place. I was alone, naked… and, well, spent. I had bite marks on my neck and my back was scratched…" Gibbs drank a sip of his Coke and continued, "I was very confused in the beginning, but when my memory returned, I rushed back to the ship and had the medical officer on duty do some tests on my blood. So I discovered I had been duped with a natural aphrodisiac, something made with a bug or a beetle. Anyway, I wanted to return to the bar..." Gibbs shook his head, frustrated, "I don't really know what I wanted to – or could - do once there, but the repairs on the ship had been completed and there was no time. And so I left." He let out a deep sigh, "Since then, I've never touched a drop of alcohol on this day again, Ducky. What a way to honour my loved ones' memory, uh? Raping an innocent girl…" He fell silent, as he wondered once again what it had been of his victim. He just hoped he had not hurt her too badly and that somehow she had been able to go on with her life.

"Jethro," Ducky said after a while, "it wasn't your fault. You were drugged. The bug you mentioned is the so called "Spanish Fly", and it's one of the oldest and most powerful aphrodisiac known to mankind. There was no way you could have resisted its effect, especially because, by the rapidity it acted, I would say you were given a very high dose of it. You were a victim, as much as that poor girl was."

Gibbs shook his head, "No. I can't accept it. That's too easy of a way out. No matter what I was given, I was the one who raped her! You've no idea of what I did to her…"

Ducky stared at him, impassibly, "Well Jethro, from what you just told me, you've no idea either. You don't remember what happened that night."

Gibbs nodded, "Yeah, but what do you think could have happened given my condition and her being tied to a bed?"

"I don't know, but a very good friend of mine has a rule – I think its number eight – that says 'never take anything for granted'. I think you should follow it too. You woke up alone in a hotel room… how did you get there? You said you were 'spent' and that you had bite marks and your back was scratched. How could have the girl done that if she was gagged and tied? Is it not possible you somehow found another woman, maybe a prostitute, and went with her in that hotel?"

"Or maybe I raped the girl, left the bar and then, not yet satisfied, I slacked my lust on another woman…" Gibbs retorted, still unable to accept the absolution Ducky was offering.

"I agree it's possible you did that. The Spanish Fly is really powerful. But there is no proof you did it, Jethro, and for me a man is innocent until proved guilty. So, what would you say if I now offer you a glass of bourbon to wash away the taste of that Coke?" Ducky asked with a smile on his lips and hope in his eyes.

Gibbs looked at the older man for a long time. Was it possible his friend was right? Was it possible he had sex with a woman that wasn't the girl? As Ducky had said, she couldn't have left those marks on him, unless he had freed her from her ties and gag. And in any case those marks had been light; the kind a passionate lover leaves behind, not the wounds a raped woman inflicts on her abuser as she fights him.

He nodded to himself. Ducky was right: there was no proof he had raped the girl. Sure, the chances he did were still high, but it wasn't certain he had really done it, and Gibbs decided to be lenient with himself. He had been punishing and berating himself for the past twelve years. It was now time he put things in perspective and move on.

A slow smile spread on his face and he turned to look at the other man.

"I'd say that's a great idea, Duck," Gibbs answered his friend's question, leaning over to pour the Coke into the sink behind the counter, "A hell of a great idea."

To be completed in part 2

Please let me know what you think. Reviews make my day and make me update faster!


	2. Joy

_Thank you so much to my reviewers. Just 4 out of 338 hits...as we say in Italy, "just a few, but good!" :) I'm happy you enjoyed this first part abd you found both Gibbs and Ducky in character. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the story too... _

**2-Joy**

An hour later Gibbs drove his Challenger into his driveway, frowning when he noticed Ziva's red car parked near his garage.

What was she doing there at that hour? He just hoped whatever it was won't turn to be a major emergency. He was tired and longed for a good night of sleep.

He walked toward his house and saw the Israeli sitting on the porch steps.

"Ziva," he said in greeting, "what are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you, Gibbs. I need to talk with you, if you have time."

She sounded very serious, so he pursed his lips and nodded. "Sure." Then, seeing she wasn't standing, he sat down at her side. "So, what do you want to talk me about? Something wrong?"

"Not really—just very difficult to say," Ziva replied, shifting her weight on the wooden step.

"Work related?"

"No. Family related. Do you remember when you asked me why I had to return to Israel for a week last month?"

Gibbs nodded, "Yeah. You told me it was a family matter that your father wanted to see you."

"He wanted to see me all right, and the reason was my son had just been hurt," she said, looking straight at him.

His eyes widened in surprise, "Your son? You have a son?" he asked, not bothering to cover his stupor.

Ziva had never mentioned it before—but now that he thought again, he remembered the strange look in her eyes the time he had told her that the difference between her and Yoon Dawson, a North Korean spy, was that Yoon had a little girl, while Ziva didn't have a child. He also remembered the conversation they had the previous year, when an infant had gone missing.

"_You want to have children, Ziva?"_

"_Well..."_

"_It's a simple question."_

"_I do not have a simple answer."_

"Yes, I have," Ziva's voice brought him back to the present. "His name is Binyamin Eitan—the Hebrew version of Benjamin Ethan – David, but I call him Ben. He is eleven."

Gibbs shook his head and smiled gently at the love and pride he had heard in her voice. "I never suspected you might be a mother. You're good at keeping secrets."

She nodded with one of her tiny, secretive smiles, "When I moved here three years ago, I thought it would best if I kept it for myself, since Ben didn't come with me and I didn't wish to explain to everyone why my boy wasn't here with me."

"And why he isn't here?" he asked, as he idly thought she had to have been very young when she had her son.

Ziva took a moment before answering, and when she did, her voice was tinged with pain. "Ben hasn't had an easy childhood. When he was just a baby, he was victim of a terrorist attack while he was at the market with my sister Tali. She died, and my son was seriously wounded in his legs. For a time the doctors feared they would have to amputate his limbs, but blessedly Ben responded to the cures and his legs could be saved. However, he limps when he walks and you can imagine how hard it can be for a boy not to be able to run or kick a ball as all the other children do."

Gibbs nodded, understanding her pain. He remembered how full of energy Kelly had been and how tiring even for a trained Marine, to keep up with her when they went on vacation. He couldn't imagine how hard it would have been if his little angel had been unable to run or jump up and down.

"Despite that, Ben is a happy, serene, well-adapted child, with a lot of friends. He is a computer genius, you know? I bet he could give McGee a run for his money…" Ziva smiled and Gibbs grinned back.

"Sounds like he's a brave young man."

"He is. He always makes me so proud," she smiled again, and then sobered. "I only want what is best for him, and this was why I did not wish to take him away from Tel Aviv, where he lived with my mother. I did not want to take him away from his friends and the only life he has known so far…"

"But? 'Cause I feel there is one coming."

"_But_ last month something has happened to make me change my mind. He fell down the stairs when one of his legs gave out, and he broke his wrist. Nothing major, I know, but the fear I felt during my flight to Tel Aviv, when it looked like Ben had hit his head too, made me realize I cannot keep on living so far away from him. So I have decided to bring him to America with me, because I want him to live with me, but also because I want to have him to be checked by a famous orthopaedist here in DC. Also Ben loves America, and he has wanted to come here for years. Among the other things, he wants to go to school here, then he wants to attend the MIT when he is old enough and then go to work for Microsoft…"

Gibbs snorted, amused. "It seems he has his life already planned out!"

"Yes…and it would be far easier for him to realize his dreams if his American father would recognize Ben as his son. Ben would have dual citizenship and would not risk being sent back to Israel should my position with NCIS be terminated another time."

_Ah,_ thought Gibbs, _here it is, the reason of this conversation._

"He doesn't want to recognize him?" he asked.

Ziva grimaced as she answered. "The situation is far more complex. His father doesn't know he has a son. More, I strongly doubt he even remembers the night Ben was conceived. I have seen him quite a lot since my arrival in the US, and he has never given any hint he recognized me. So, well, it isn't that easy to find a way to tell him he has a son…"

Gibbs was very surprised. Ziva was like a bulldozer, she stopped in front of nothing and she could even be annoying with her persistence. So why was she so reticent now?

"Is he married?"

"No."

"Some top brass in Capitol Hill? Are you afraid of a scandal?"

"No."

"Then what, Ziva? I can't help you if I don't know the facts," he replied with a bit of exasperation. He had never liked riddles and this night was wearing on him.

"Right. Listen; let me tell you a story, Gibbs. Then, hopefully, you will understand why the situation is so complex."

Gibbs nodded, "Okay. Go on, I'm listening."

Ziva shifted her position on the steps, to that she was now looking toward the street and began. "Just after my eighteenth birthday, my father assigned me my first mission for Mossad. I was sent to Beirut to work as a waitress in a bar where, according to our sources, Hezbollah terrorists met. My task was to record the conversations, snap photos, and to learn the patterns of the meetings. Unfortunately, one of our sources turned out to be a traitor with a grudge against my father and he sold me to the terrorists. I was discovered and captured, and would have been killed if a costumer, an American, hadn't stepped inside the bar and asked for bourbon. Killing an American wasn't a good idea, so one of the terrorists went to serve him his drink while the other dragged me into the back of the shop and gagged me before tying me tied me to a bed. I can only speculate about what happened next. Perhaps they decided to have some fun at mine and the American's expenses before they killed me; perhaps they were just perverts. Whatever the case, they spiked the American's drink with a potent aphrodisiac, and then led him into the room where I was."

Gibbs paled. That story was far too familiar to be just a coincidence—and even if it was, he didn't believe in coincidences. He turned his head to look at Ziva, but couldn't make out her features in the darkness of the porch.

"What…happened?" he managed to ask, the need to know overwhelming.

"The American came over me. He stretched atop of me and I could feel he was so hard it had to be painful for him. His pupils were so dilated the irises where no longer visible, he was sweaty, flushed, and his breath was hurried. He looked out of his mind with need and I knew he would rip my clothes and take me. But then…something happened. He looked straight into my eyes and something in him changed. His fevered look went away as clarity returned in his eyes. Moving very quickly, he managed to subdue the two terrorists. Then he freed me and together we escaped the bar. I led him to a nearby hotel which I knew to be safe, we rented a room and I used the phone to call for back up."

Gibbs raised his eyes to the sky, and whispered a brief thank you. Ducky had been right. He hadn't raped the girl—he hadn't raped Ziva. He had saved her instead. A grin appeared on his lips but whatever he wanted to say was stopped by her next words.

"When I was done, I turned to face my saviour and I saw his condition had deteriorated. He was lying on the bed, flushed, breathing hurriedly and was sweating so profusely it looked like he had just washed his hair. But what really shocked me were the tears streaming down his cheeks… He was in pain… suffering badly… and I couldn't bear it." Ziva's voice faltered for the first time since she had started her tale, and Gibbs had to fight the desire to put a supporting hand on her shoulder. "He-he had saved my life. Instead of fucking me as those bastards had planned and as his body screamed to him to do, he had fought against his need and saved me. And he was still fighting his urges, gripping the headboard to tightly I was afraid he would break the wood. So…"

"So?" Gibbs urged, with a strangled voice he barely recognized as his own.

"So I did the only thing I could do. I undressed both of us and gave him what he so desperately needed." Ziva swallowed hard, and used the heel of her hand to brush away a few tears. "It was the most intense and emotionally draining night of my life."

"Did- did he hurt you?" Gibbs asked, not minding how weird it was to refer to himself in third person.

"No more than I hurt him, only bruises, some scratches, some soreness. Only what usually happens when two people have passionate sex."

Gibbs nodded, relieved and with the strange need to head-slap himself for having berated himself for so long for something that had never happened.

"What happened next?" he asked when he had his emotions again under control. He knew that Ziva was aware he was that man, but he wasn't ready to admit he too remembered that night, at least not until she said aloud she knew who he was.

"During the night, my Mossad control officer came to extract me from Beirut. I wanted to make sure the American was fine, but I wasn't allowed. A few hours later I was out of Lebanon and back in Israel. I was safe…and pregnant, although, of course I didn't know back then." Ziva changed position on the steps and turned to face him, her eyes filled with an emotion he couldn't recognize. "I kept my child because aborting or giving him away was never an option- and I never forgot his father's eyes." She smiled briefly. "You cannot imagine my shock when, years later, while compiling a dossier on a NCIS agent for my brother, I saw those eyes stare back at me from your photo. You are that man, Gibbs…Jethro. You are Ben's father."

Gibbs was shocked, completely and utterly shocked. He felt like he had taken a blow to the solar plexus and found difficult to breath. His head was spinning and his heart was pounding so hard in his chest he was almost afraid it would jump out of it.

He had a son. With Ziva. He and Ziva had a boy.

It was incredible. Unconceivable. Fantastic. Scary. Overwhelming. Amazing.

He was a father again.

"Are you all right?" Ziva asked, hesitantly touching his arm.

"I-I don't know… You've just shaken my world and I don't know if it will ever stop rocking… As you guessed, I've no memories of most of that night. I just remember feeling … unwell… then the room in the back of the bar and the girl tied there. Up to tonight, I've always thought I had ended up raping her… raping you. Now … now you tell me I didn't, but that we still had sex together and that a child resulted from it … My child. It sounds so incredible that it was you … and me … and that we've a son…" he shook his head, trying to clear his confused thoughts.

"I know it sounds incredible, but it is not," she said softly, gently squeezing his arm. "Would it help if I showed you a picture of Ben? Would it make it more credible?"

Gibbs nodded eagerly, watching anxiously as Ziva retrieved a photo from her purse and gave it to him.

He found himself staring at the image of a boy with short, spiky brown hair, shining blue eyes full of mischief and a toothy grin that made him think of Kelly.

"He's beautiful…" Gibbs whispered, studying every detail of the photo.

"Yes, he is. He is beautiful, intelligent, smart, brave, stubborn and a lover of sail boats and fast cars. And… he is also very proud of his father and eager to meet him," Ziva added, almost hesitatingly.

Gibbs' head whipped up, "He knows about me? You told him?"

Ziva nodded, "Yes. I told him the day I had the absolute certainty you were his father … my saviour in Beirut."

He tilted his head, curious, "How?"

"Remember when Sharif called you telling you had been poised with BZ gas?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Ducky took blood samples for testing and after he was done, before he could dispose of them, I …ahem… sneaked down in Autopsy and took one for a paternity test."

"Oh."

"In my heart, I have always known it was you, Gibbs…Jethro. That is why I was so eager to come to work with you, but I needed proof. For Ben. I could not risk disappointing him if it turned out I had been mistaken."

"I understand," he really did. He would have done the same in Ziva's place. "But that was almost two years ago…Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Because I could never find a way to introduce the topic. Every time I told myself it was the moment to approach you, something happened. You were with Colonel Mann, I was worried about Tony's strange behaviour, we were all put under investigation regarding La Grenouille's murder, Jenny was killed, I was sent back home…" her voice trailed off as she made a gesture with her hands to underscore her frustration.

"And what about this evening?" Gibbs asked.

Ziva shrugged, "I decided that I could not keep waiting for the _right_ moment to arrive, and that I had to make it happen. This evening it's the twelfth anniversary of Ben's conception and I thought it was a good time to tell you."

He nodded, understanding.

Silence fell over them as Gibbs returned to study Ben's photo, running his fingertip over his child's nose, cheekbones and chin.

_My son_, he thought, feeling his heart swell with the same mix of awe, pride and wonder he had felt the day he had held Kelly in his arms for the first time.

A child, conceived during what he had thought had been the most shameful night of his life but instead it had just become one of the most important.

A boy who needed a father and not just to make him an American citizen.

A father that was rapidly discovering that his previously closed off heart had still so much to give.

A second chance to raise a young life, hoping to do as a good job as his Dad did with him.

"Can I-" Gibbs' voice broke and he tried again, "Can I meet him?"

"You want to?" Ziva asked a mix of anxiety and hope on her face.

"Yes, very much so."

"Excellent," she replied with a cheeky grin, "because Ben is inside your house, waiting for you."

Gibbs' mouth opened in surprise as he turned around. Sure enough the lights in the living room were now on, and he caught a glimpse of a brown-haired head and curious blue eyes looking at him from the window. Had Ben been watching them all along? Probably yes, if he was anything like his mother—and him.

Ziva stood up and he did the same. Near the door, she stopped with a hand on the knob, to reach to him with her other arm.

He took her offered hand as she asked, "Ready?"

"Ready," Gibbs replied with a slight nod, his voice not betraying his emotions, as Ziva turned the knob and pushed the door open….

_The End__...for now. This is part one of a trilogy about Gibbs and his son (and the other NCIS characters, of course!)- and while it will involve Ziva too, it won't become a Zibbs. Next story: "Promise Made." To be posted soon._

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A/N: when I wrote this story (summer 2009), I based Ziva's age on Cote De Pablo's real age. Cote was born in 1979, making her 18 in 1997.

Then, a screenshot of the of the application forms Ziva hands to Gibbs in "The Insider Man", showed a printed 1982 and I guess it's her birth date. However, rewriting this story to set it in 2000 would have been impossible, because at that time Gibbs was in Moscow, married with Stephanie, and working with Callen etc.

So I've decided to stick with making Ziva eighteen in 1997 and make this even more AU it already was...:)


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